Fu Yilan was thankful for the help. Sister Li had only done the bare minimum of instructing her, and it seemed like there was quite a bit she left out. The scripture pavilion was a building that was taller than the other ones in the sect. columns were at its front, holding up the overhanging roof.
Inside, an old but well-muscled man sat, skin tan and scars crisscrossing over his arms, which were left bare. He didn’t seem like the type to be a librarian, but maybe it was necessary to have someone that had experience on the battlefield protecting the manuals of the sect.
“New junior?” he exclaimed in a bored voice. He had a belly underneath his robes, and his gaze moved over Fu Yilan. She didn’t like the look she saw in his eyes.
“Yes, Senior. She just joined yesterday. Please take care of her.” Sister Gao had returned to her timid self and quickly left under the both bored and judging look of the librarian. She could understand it though, her aversion to his presence. He had a pressure to him that made her hairs stand on end.
“Mhm, I see. Still mortal, huh? Not bad though, seems like this sect lured in a fairy.” He grinned at his words. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Fu Yilan, Senior,” she replied, bowing. She wasn’t sure about the proper etiquette but bowing seemed to work for most people.
“Call me Senior Feng. Anyway. You’re probably here for a cultivation manual. At the moment, you don’t know shit about shit. The cultivation manual I’ll be giving you will only gather energy into your dantian, as soon as you’ve made one. Anything else, from body strengthening to fighting arts will be separate. The first manual we’ll loan to you. Earn it back with merits from the mission hall. After that, you’ll have to buy each and every art you want with the merits you’ll be earning yourself.” He paused, waiting for a response. Fu Yilan nodded, so he continued. “Tell me, what’s your main element? So, I can find a proper cultivation method for you.”
“I was told my main element was water, alongside a bit of wood.”
“Alright, follow me.” Senior Feng got up with a grunt and walked through the rows. It was a seemingly random mix of bamboo scrolls and bound books that were stacked on the shelves, but the Scripture Pavilion Master Feng seemed to know where he was going, because he never paused to take a look at a single manual they were passing.
“Here, this should suit you rather well. The Moonlit Infinite Ripples art. I think it could suit someone like you quite well.” His eyes scanned her again, narrowing. “You might be able to put it to use, properly.” Then he headed back to the entrance, leaving Fu Yilan standing there by herself, slightly confused by what he said at the end.
Her chest wraps pressed against her chest from the outside, while her quickly beating heart did so from the inside. This art would let her escape her fate as a street rat. She looked excitedly at the book in her hand. Grabbing it tightly, she left the library and returned to her room.
“In your mind, imagine a still lake. Know that the lake encompasses all that you are. Your mind and consciousness both make up this lake. Let a column of water, a part of yourself, rise into the sky, towards the heavens. The moon’s eye shall appear in the sky. This moon throws its cold blue light down into you. Reach as high as you can, closer to the heavens.”
Fu Yilan sat on her bed, cross-legged, eyes closed. She could feel little sparks of moonlight flowing through the column she had raised. It was odd. Despite being within her own mind, as soon as she started receiving the moon’s qi, the column that should have reached infinitely high, only stopped by her imagination, suddenly only snaked into the sky two meters high. It felt as though laws she didn’t understand were pushing against her, trying to confine her to earth. But Fu Yilan kept on pushing her mind’s water up into the column, that looked more like a tendril waving around, wave after wave letting her inch up into the sky.
The moonlight sparks danced in her inner lake, brought down and incorporated by the column. She lost herself in the beauty of the moment, in the vastness of the sky, the light of the moon, the apparent depth of herself. With a sigh, she opened her eyes. A smile was dancing around her pretty lips as she felt at the small cluster of qi behind her navel. She was building a core. Soon, she too would be a cultivator!
“It’s dinnertime! Where were you at lunch. Are you stupid or something, Little Sister?” Sister Li, the girl with the long face slammed open the door, dispersing the mist that had mysteriously gathered at the floor. Fu Yilan only noticed it when it disappeared but didn’t comment on it. Just a slight oddity from cultivating, probably.
“I’m sorry, sister Li. I didn’t know what time it was; I was cultivating.” Sister Li sneered at that.
“Just give up, there’s no way you have any talent. It took me two weeks to form my dantian, and I’m among the quicker ones. Wasted the whole day cultivating and probably haven’t felt any qi yet. Am I right?” Fu Yilan wanted to tell her, to brag in her face. Wanted to say that she already had quite a few sparks in her dantian.
One of the lessons she remembered from the streets though was to always act weaker than the ones who were stronger than you expected. It would be solely her fault, after all, if she got something taken away someone stronger than her wanted. So, she needed every advantage she could get to fight for herself. And surprise was one of them.
In the dining hall, Fu Yilan finally met the third woman in the sect. She was a second-class disciple, who had introduced herself as Senior Sister Yang. She had a pretty, symmetrical face with red lips. Was she wearing makeup?
“Well, aren’t you a pretty one? Fu Yilan, right? I can see, you’re pulling quite a few stares onto you. You must love the attention, huh?” Fu Yilan blushed and shook her head. She had noticed the glances but had attributed them to her being new. Senior Sister Yang just giggled. “I’m just kidding, just kidding.” A sisterly smile was on her face that didn’t reach her eyes.
During dinner, speaking was prohibited, so everyone ate in silence. Fu Yilan could barely wait to get back to cultivating. The small sparks of moonlight settling in her lake was just magical.
After dinner, they sat in one of the courtyards, one ringed by old trees and long grass. An elder went through the rows of second-class disciples and read from a book. Apparently, it contained words of the sect’s founder. The meaning of his words eluded her though. She feigned attention though, just like those around her were doing, and tried to grasp at straws of meaning in the words of the ancestor. None came to her though. Half an hour later, they were let off to their dorms.
Fu Yilan stripped off her robes and went to clean herself. The other three were already inside, washing each other’s backs. Or more precisely, Senior Sister Yang let the other two wash her back. Then, those two washed each other’s back. It was clear that she stood above them. In a way, it even made sense, since she was a second-class disciple after all.
Fu Yilan tried to make eye-contact with Sister Gao, the one that had kindly brought her to the scripture pavilion. She however avoided Fu Yilan’s searching gaze. The stone felt cold under her feet as she walked into the bathing room. A pipe brought water into a basin, from which you could take it with buckets to wash yourself. Grabbing her own, Fu Yilan got her water and sat next to the other three. The small wooden stool creaked as she sat down.
“I knew my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me! The others might not notice, but you were tying these massive things down, weren’t you?” Senior Sister Yang appeared behind her quicker than was humanly possible. “Oh, nice and soft, and look at that behind. You really are trying to seduce every single boy in this sect, aren’t you?”
Fu Yilan shook her head. How could that be true? She had been wearing loose clothing and wrapping her chest tightly. But when she opened her mouth to speak against those accusations, Senior Sister Yang squeezed her breast tight, and Fu Yilan yelped in pain.
“Be quiet you little bitch.” She was speaking into her ear, quietly. Intensely. She had done something to her voice, because Fu Yilan was getting a headache. “Their eyes are on me, and only me. You hear that? The shifting grass sect needs neither a fairy, nor a goddess. Leave this sect and never come back. Violence is forbidden, but there are other ways to deal with you.” With a flick from her wrist, Fu Yilan was flung to the ground. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was used to being weaker. Not to this degree, but she bit down on the pain in her heart and rushed to her room. She had expected life to change, now that she had left the streets. But it seemed like there were bullies everywhere she went.